Dimensional modeling always uses the concepts of facts, AKA ‘measures’, and dimensions. Facts are typically (but not always) numeric values that can be aggregated, and dimensions are groups of hierarchies and descriptors that define the facts. For example, sales amount is a fact; timestamp, product, register#, store#, etc. are elements of dimensions. Dimensional models are built by subject area, e.g. store sales, inventory, claims, etc. Because the different subject areas share some but not all dimensions, efficiency in design, operation, and consistency, is achieved using conformed dimensions, i.e. using one copy of the shared dimension across subject areas. The term “conformed dimensions” was originated by Ralph Kimball.[2]

Source:

1- Ralph Kimball (1997). “A Dimensional Modeling Manifesto”. DBMS and Internet Systems 10 (9). http://www.dbmsmag.com/9708d15.html.

2- Wikipedia.org

data mart approach’s focus on a particular subject or department to help management make strategic decision about their business is similar to Evidenced based Management’s approach’s defining the objective and information needs, based on that collecting data and analyzing and turning that data into insights and presenting that into insights.

Instead of focusing on collecting everything that is easily measured and counted, organization’s need to be more systematic and selective about the information they are gathering.[1]

Source:

1- Moving from data to insights by Bernard Marr – Management by Certified Management Accounting Canada -June/July 2009.

In this step the focus should be on manger’s information needs identification and objective of these. In other words organization’s information needs to be highly selective.

Identify strategic objectives/information needs – here we link the data we collect to most important drivers of value and performance. This insures that analytics we generate (a) are relevant to organization’s competitive positioning, (b) support its greatest information needs, and are not (c) wasted on irrelevant information. [1]

Identify who has the information needs

Here it is important to target audience (information customers)
Information customers can be groups of people such as the board of directors, senior managers, the HR and marketing departments, or a single person.[1]

Clarify what questions they want answered

The aim is to ensure that analytics provide the knowledge that will enable the recipients to make most appropriate and focused business decision.

Clarify what decision needs to be taken
We need to clearly identify any important decisions the data support.

Our point of view: the above steps are true for business intelligence and data mart development.

Source:

1 – Intelligence required – moving from data to insights by Bernard Marr – Management by CMA

Through Evidence-Based management, organizations explicitly use evidence (the best and most appropriate information) to guide the decision-making process to extract maximum value and competitive advantage from their data and information. According to Stanford University Professor Robert Sutton EBM is simple idea: It just means finding the best evidence that you can, facing those facts, and acting on those facts – rather than doing what everyone else does, what you have always done, or what you thought was true. We like this statement.

Five steps towards evidence-based management (EBM)

Step 1: Defining objective and information needs.
Step2: Based on step 1 collecting data.
Step 3: Analyzing data – focus on turning data into relevant insights.
Step 4: Presenting information – focusing on communicating the information and insights to business decision makers – extracted in step 3.
Step 5: Making evidence based decision concerned with Turing information into knowledge and decisions.

Role of information technology in EBM

IT and Business intelligence (BI) plays an important role in Evidence-Based management. Right steps should be taken and most important is common sense and something we do intuitively, instead of believing that state-of-the art Business Intelligence infrastructure will resolve all the problems.

Our point of view: we strongly agree with the evidence-based management techniques presented above, especially Professor Robert Sutton’s statement that finding the best evidence, facing those facts, and acting on those facts.